French Presidential candidate supports gay marriage (Royal)

[Charlie Brown]

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-06-19T141532Z_01_L19755481_RTRUKOC_0_UK-FRANCE-HOMOSEXUALS.xml&archived=False

PARIS (Reuters) - Segolene Royal, the Socialist frontrunner for France's 2007 presidential poll, has said gay couples should be allowed to marry and adopt children, laying out her position on what could become a divisive election issue.

Royal said France needed to do a lot more work to make sure homosexuals were treated fairly.

"It is essential that everybody has equal rights and dignities and the chance to express themselves freely," Royal told the gay magazine Tetu in an interview to be published on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's conservative government opposes gay marriages and does not allow same-sex couples to adopt children, but has given homosexual couples who form a civil union more financial rights.

Royal, who leads opinion surveys on who should be the Socialists' presidential candidate, said her party would make gay marriage legal if it was elected in 2007

[Laughing Mirror]

1. She will be elected, probably

and France will legalize gay marriage, finally, which will put France on par with some its neighboring countries to the north and south, and that will be that. The current PACs civil union arrangement just isn't hitting it in the egalité department.

I wish she would re-examine her position on what to do about poor and underprivileged immigrant kids in the projects whose future is bleak and will not look a lot brighter with her cruel propositions she has put forward. They would amount to making the lives of these young people harder and would enact penalties on their already over-penalized parents, caught in the middle of two cultures, for the most part. Segolene's policy about this is sickening to me, and is ill advised. She needs to straighten her act out about this. There's no need to try to out-Sarkozy Sarkozy, just cause you think you'll pick up a few of his stray votes.

[BayCityProgressive]

2. I am glad

the Socialists are almost certain of regaining power in France. Now, I had read her positions on stopping crime were controversial but could you explain more? I didn't see anything offensive in what I read on Wikipedia, I know it is not always reliable. It said that kids who are violent at school would be put in seperate schools and people who break the law would get state aid cut off from them. I tend to agree with this position...am I not getting the whole picture??? I confess I know almost nothing of France's internal politics.

[Laughing Mirror]

3. She was on the news the other night ... as usual

Since she has appeared to be the one being primed for the presidency over the past couple of months and her views are only recently starting to come out. Two pronouncements that she made in particular, two brilliant ways of restoring law and order in the projects really jumped out at me: mandatory military service for boys who get arrested and fines their parents would have to pay. People with money who do not live in the projects could easily buy their way out such predicament. Less easy for people with no money and no resources in the projects. This possibly has not occurred to Segolene. Like most of the other major candidates, she just cannot put herself in their place. Stéphane Pocrain, wonderful Green Party candidate is the only one I've heard of who can. He's running on the egalité platform. I hope he'll have Segolene's ear.

Here's a brief write-up on him. He is Antillais.
http://tf1.lci.fr/infos/france/0,,3304694,00.html

[BayCityProgressive]

4. yuck those

positions are terrible. First off why blame the parents...unless the kids are young enough that their parents should be getting them to school, enforcing cerfews ect. Any why would you want an army full of troubled teens? Sounds like that would be war crimes just waiting to happen!